Reverse
by ice.venom.77
Summary: Roy Mustang sends the Elric brothers on a mission to investigate a string of crimes in a small Eastern town. But the criminals are much more dangerous than originally thought, and the Elrics find they can't handle the situation on their own.
1. Alleyway

Edward Elric sat in a train, leaning on his arm with a bored look on his face. His brother, Alphonse, sat in silence across from him, and he had a secret.

"Look, Ed, we're almost there." Alphonse said carefully.

"Finally," The Fullmetal Alchemist grumbled. His commanding officer, Colonel Roy Mustang, had just sent him out on a mission to a small Eastern town. Apparently there had been some suspicious activity that included disappearances, break-ins, and in one case, the corpse of a twenty-five year-old man who died after being shot in the head.

Normally it wasn't something a state alchemist would handle, but most of the crimes had something to do with alchemy. The break-ins centered around an alchemic research lab. The dead man was an alchemist working in that building, and the disappearances focused around alchemists that worked in the building as well. There was also an increase in escaped prisoners. Whatever the criminal's goal was, it centered around alchemy.

Five different cases of break-ins, eight disappearances, six escaped prisoners, and one dead man, all over the span of two and a half months.

Ed went over the case in his head - it wasn't like he has anything better to do, anyway - and found himself annoyed at the lack of information. The colonel had mentioned that things had disappeared after the break-ins, likely stolen, but had decided not to specify what. It was just like Colonel Bastard to give Ed as little information as possible.

A small noise came from Alphonse's armor, jolting Ed out of his thoughts.

"Al," Ed asked incredulously. "Did your armor just meow?"

"Yes - I mean no! Not at all," Al said hurriedly.

Ed's eyes narrowed as another audible _mew _came out of the suit of armor.

"Aw, come on, she was so hungry..." Alphonse began, unable to deny the fact that there was a cat in his armor. "I couldn't just _leave _her there. She was lonely!"

"Al, you know we don't have the means to care for a cat."

The train slowed to stop as Al seemed to glare at his brother.

Edward got up and stretched. "C'mon, Al, it's time to go."

As soon as they left the train station, Ed stopped and turned to his quiet brother. "Alright, Al, let her free."

"But-"

"Alphonse, we can't take care of her. You gotta let her go."

"You're heartless, brother!" Alphonse proclaimed, rather loudly, but obediently opened up his armor.

Inside was not one, but _two _cats, nearly identical. Edward sighed loudly. "I thought there was only one!"

Alphonse gently took out the two kittens - they couldn't be more than a year old - and placed them carefully on the grass. "You can't pick up every stray cat you find, Al. Come on, we'd better find someplace to stay for the night," Edward said as the unhappy Alphonse closed his armor and watched as the two kittens clammered away.

Finding an inn proved to be an easy task. There where only a few in the town, but the first one the brothers found was nearly empty.

While most inns had a jovial atmosphere and crowds of people, Ed noticed that this one had only a few employees inside. The bartender looked up at Ed's entrance and smiled broadly. "Welcome, welcome!"

Ed frowned. "That's odd," he muttered. "Any particular reason this inn is almost empty?" He asked, loudly.

The bartender had a quizzical look on her face. "Surely you've heard? The disappearances have been keeping people on their guard as of late. It's driving away tourists and most people have been staying in their homes. It's rather bad for business, I'm afraid."

"Ah," Edward said, understanding. "Makes sense. We'd like a room for two, please."

Just as Edward and Alphonse where being directed to their room, one of the waitresses gasped and pointed outside. "It's... it's one of them criminals!"

Edward twisted around and saw a cloaked figure walking hurriedly down the street, the direction Ed knew the laboratory was in. Ed smirked and took off to the door, calling for Al to follow.

"Coming, brother," Al yelled after him.

As soon as the cloaked figure heard the inn door open, he twisted around to see the two young alchemists running after him. He cursed loudly and ducked into an alleyway. Ed smirked as he turned and followed. it was a dead end. Ed rolled his shoulders. "Didn't expect this mission to end so soon," he muttered confidently. Using alchemy, he turned his automail arm into a deadly blade. He strode forward, and Al stood still at the entrance to the alley, prepared if the criminal attempted to escape.

"Were are you headed in such a rush?" Ed hissed. "And that's a strange choice of outfit. How about you come with me?"

"I don't think so," the cloaked man shouted, and reached into his cloak. Al shouted out a warning as a he pulled out a small, silver object that shined wickedly in the moonlight. A gun.

Ed ducked aside to dodge as the man fired. _Ha, missed._ Al cried out Ed's name, which Ed found rather odd, but he supposed that Alphonse had been startled by the shot. Ed smirked and charged raising the blade he'd transmuted on his arm.

_That's__ strange_, his legs suddenly felt weaker, like they might buckle beneath him. His charge became significantly slower when he drew near the cloaked figure. Why was the man smirkng so broadly?

The man easily sidestepped and dodged. Ed felt a strange lurch of neasua and he stumbled at the end of the charge, automail arm still raised. "Why-" he began, and then he looked down and saw blood blooming through a bullet-sized tear in his shirt, right under his right ribcage.

He staggered forward and brought his left hand to cover the wound. "Well, _shit_," he hissed as blood soaked through his shirt.

The bullet hadn't missed, afterall.


	2. Wounded

**Pretty short chapter, I'll try to make the next one longer.**

Shit, shit, shit. It took a moment for the pain to register. When it did, it was excruciating. Edward screamed as he fell to his knees, breathing heavily.

_He shot me._

He sank to his knees and gave the man in front of him a hard, shocked look. The man raised his gun again, this time for a kill shot, and Edward froze.

_He shot me. He's going to kill me._

Alphonse barreled into the cloaked man with a wrath that Ed had never seen in him before. The gun clammered to the ground before it had a chance to fire. The cloaked man staggered to the side and looked up, terrified, but Al didn't care about him, now that he was no longer holding a gun. The man ran, hard and fast.

"Brother! Brother!" Alphonse cried out. He kneeled down and looked at his brother's wounds. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, Al. Just fine, " Ed answered through gritted teeth.

Alphonse put his hand on his brother's shoulder, looking worried. "Can you stand?"

"Al," Edward growled. "I need... you to go after... him."

"What? No way, I won't leave you behind!" Al sounded offended at the suggestion.

"Dammit, Al, he's our only lead!"

"I don't care! It's not worth it, Ed." Alphonse moved his hand underneath Ed's armpits and lifted. Ed grunted in pain but didn't struggle.

Most of Ed's weight rested on his armored brother as they trudged slowly out of the alleyway. His wound hurt like hell and every movement sent a spike of pain through him, so leaning on Al was much less painful then walking.

Blood had already soaked through his shirt and it was dripping down onto the ground, leaving splotches of crimson on the concrete. Although Ed had an extremely high pain tolerance, a gunshot wound felt like nothing he'd ever felt before. Excluding when he'd lost his arm and leg, anyway.

It felt hot and searing, and incredibly intense, and now the adreniline that had come with being shot had left his body, he was left with nothing but pain and anger.

"God dammit..." Ed hissed. "We where... so close."

He could only imagine the look that bastard colonel would have when he'd heard that Ed had been shot. He would probably send someone else down - Havoc, maybe - to investigate in Ed's place. Ed would be pulled off the mission.

God dammit.

"Alphonse..."

"Easy, brother." Alphonse sounded concerned.

"Colonel... Bastard... can't know about this. He'd send... someone else down here instead."

Al made a noise that was as close to a sigh as a suit of armor could get. His brother always refused to give up on job assignments. "Sure, brother." He'd argue later.

It was a minute at most before they arrived at the inn, but it felt like hours.

Alphonse slammed the inn door open, hollering for someone to come help. One of the waitresses - the same one that had pointed out the cloaked man in the first place - gasped.

"What happened?" She demanded.

"No time! Where's the nearest hospital!? We need to get him medical attention... Can anybody drive us there?" Al sounded panicked.

The waitress hesitated. "The criminal is gone, don't worry," Al added.

She nodded. "Alright, I... I can drive you there."

"Thank you."

A couple minutes later, Alphonse placed Ed carefully in the car seat beside him. Ed winced as the car started and hit a dip in the road, jostling his injury.

While Al began to explain Ed's injuries to the waitress, Ed leaned on the car door. His eyelids closed and he realized he was on the brink of passing out.

He forced his eyes back opened and looked down. He winced at the sheer amount of blood that was covering both him and the car seat. It was a frightening thing, to see his own blood spilling out of him like a crimson river.

Al watched him worriedly, a hand on his brother's shoulder. Ed attempted a weak smile. This did nothing to reassure Al.

"Damn..." Ed muttered. "Really should have expected this... We already knew they had... guns."

"How far away are we?" Al asked the driver. Ed could see her paled face as she glanced back, and he noted that her hands where shaking as she drove.

Ed didn't hear her answer. His consciousness began to fade and his vision swam. He let out a low groan and felt Al's hand tighten on his shoulder. For a while, Ed just sat there, Al continually asking how long it would be, before Edward finally passed out.


End file.
